This site and our podcast are free to use and listen to respectively. Though there are costs involved in maintaining and producing both. If you like, please make a donation to help offset these costs and to help ensure that we can continue to bring you both. Thank you so much.

You can make a one time donation of any amount you like using the above "Donate" button. If you rather make an annual recurring donation of $25 (that is less than 50 cents a week), use the "Subscribe" button below.

Well given that to date I think this series has been pretty strong I thought that was absolute junk.

He hasn't posted yet, but the chances are I'm with CyberColin.

I didn’t always think that – about 15 minutes in I actually started to warm to it, and fundamentally I liked the idea of Adam, but whatever the rest of the episode may or may not have done for me, the boardroom scene, with Reverend Jack Harkness walking round the table and one by one saving them all from themselves was just ridiculous. It actually reminded me of that pathetic Michael Jackson performance at the Brits a few years ago, that quite justifiably got Jarvis Cocker’s goat. It was that bad and cheesy.

The stuff about Jack’s background I really enjoyed; albeit if you’re going to get someone to play child Jack, getting someone who at least looks slightly similar and would have an outside chance of growing up to look like him would be nice (although given he apparently grew up to be the (spoiler in white) Face Of Boe I guess it wasn’t so out of the question).

Re the rest of them; A sex mad murderous Ianto, a cleavage-heavy slingbacked vixen version of Tosh, and a totally out of it Gwen I could live with. But Owen as Peter Parker was beyond me!

I thought the bed scene with Tosh and Adam was a bit much - not the sexual side of it, but the dialogue. It reminded me of about half a dozen different Meat Loaf songs (will you love me forever/I bet you say that to all the boys etc).

I’m quite liking Rhys this time around – and I wouldn’t have really thought that possible after last years series.

The first let down of the series for me. And yet I thought the immediately following episode 6 was a brilliant one...........

I haven't read this thread, as I haven't seen the ep yet. But I had one quick question. My source for Torchwood has both ep. 5 (ADAM) listed as well as ep. 6 (Reset). Did they show two episodes back to back or something?

I'm going "Full Circle" and putting my avatar back to what it was when I first joined. :)

Wow, sorry to say Tardis-Knight that I could not dissagree with you more. The boardroom scene was a tad OTT but the characters got to be something else. And FINALLY Ianto has some scenes that show that Gareth David-Lloyd is not just comic reilief. Meat had some streangths (CGI was NOT one of them) and this continues the trend IMO of a good series. I seem to be in the minority so far but Meat and Adam are the strongest of this series (for me) so far. And though they did have 2 diffrent episides tonight, they aired on diffrent stations.

This was actually an episode with a sci-fi concept and explored the ramifications of said concept. Though the series still caters to the sex and violence demographic, we are getting some cerebral stuff thrown in as well in series two. This one was definitely a plot-lite character piece, but we got to see different sides to the characters.

[Quote by: Linquel] I haven't read this thread, as I haven't seen the ep yet. But I had one quick question. My source for Torchwood has both ep. 5 (ADAM) listed as well as ep. 6 (Reset). Did they show two episodes back to back or something?

sort of

bbc2 had Adam and bbc3 had Martha.. i mean RESET...

in order to not be coloured by more than one show ive only watched Adam... so that I can do one podcast at a time.

I’m racking my brains to try to find an insult for this episode but I can’t – it was marvellous! That’s right, I loved it! Even though I wanted to smash Adam’s face in, I thought it was a thoroughly, well written and acted episode.

A bloke called ‘Adam’ (the ‘ginger infiltrator’) gets into Torchwood and modifies the memories of the team to make them think he’s been there for a year. He even ‘memory rape’s’ Tosh (can I use that term? Oh sod it, I just did!) We see Jack’s past, growing up on what looked like Blackpool beach but without the blood, guts and sewage. We learn ‘Gray’ (or Grey?) is Jack’s younger brother and was ‘lost’ when Jack’s homeland was attacked by an ‘unidentified aliens’.

Gwen forgets all about Rhys and nearly destroys the whole show by almost shooting him. You can’t afford to get rid of your best actors, love! Owen is a likeable geek, who is deeply in love with Tosh, who has turned into a confident er woman. Thankfully, she is put in her place later, like all women should be!*

Ianto thinks he’s murderer and to be fair it suits him more than the ‘comic’ role he’s been playing this series. Eventfully Jack susses the ginger infiltrator and before you know it, everyone’s ‘doing pills’ (well its Retcon but….) and Adam is fading away, much like the ‘career’ of Britney Spears.

Top episode, I’m not giving it full marks, because I have faith that there’ll be an episode of ‘End of Days’ portions!

9/10

* If this will get no ladies writing in, nothing will!

Next Week: I forget that I’ve seen the next episode – Reset and watch it again on BBC Two. Then I write another review and label it as ‘more shite than the contents of Pires Morgan’s mouth’. Or Bob the Builder, the bastard!

Please check out my blog, as I attempt to watch and review EVERY Doctor Who episode! http://journeythroughtimeandspace.blogspot.com/

I like this episode solely for the Captain Jack backstory. As for a creature existing entirely in the memories of others is a bit rubbish for me, but it served as a vehicle to uncover more about Captain Jack and his history, so I can look the other way on that aspect.

Oh, and I thought I was being clever by transferring this episode to my iPhone so I can watch it on the flight over to LA so that I will be up to date on Torchwood while here at Gallifrey 2008. To my surprise, after the trailer for the next episode during the end credits the BBC voice over mentions that if you want to see the next episode is now on BBC Three!

Here I was flying somewhere across the country and there was no way to catch the err.. "red eye" to the UK to get the latest episode (I was literally flying the opposite direction).

So I haven't seen Reset yet. Perhaps if I have the time I can catch a "red eye" from my hotel room here in LA.

Strong episode in my opinion. What good Sci Fi tries to do is explore the human condition given the fact that it is only one option - that there are others.

This episode's theme - that we are only what we are because of our memories - is somehing that can't be explored as adequately outside the realm of Sci Fi. In this episode, memories can be altered, our own reality can be altered - and therefore it plays with just what we are at the very basic level.

And while some parts were a bit over the top, most of it wasn't. I loved Gwen forgetting Rhys. I loved Tosh's new-found confidence, but I find it impossible to believe Owen's change. Changing his memory will indeed make him think this was his life, but there are some behaviors that would not be altered just by altering memory.

Or are there? Is changing every aspect of your memory enough to change who you are? This episode says "A RESOUNDING YES!" and was quite intriguing.

I may be in the minority by not liking Jack's backstory here. I'm also a bit in disbelief that, knowing what this guy can do, Jack let him do it a second time. No way would Jack allow that, knowing Adam could simply re-write the past few hours and Jack would end up wondering why he's in a cell? Was it some practical joke? Some sexual bet? Sorry, Adam. I'll unlock it. Wow. If putting you in there was some kind of joke, I'm sorry, mate. Not sure what I was thinking. Anyway, let's go back upstairs and have a cup of tea...

Just thought I would let you guys know that the main concept of this episode (an alien infiltrates the team by implanting false memories and making them think they have been working with them for years) has been directly lifted from one of the Torchwood books called "Border Princes" by Dan Abnett. What made the book work a little better than the episode is that it is written in such a manner that if you knew nothing about the series and read the book you would take it for granted that James (as opposed to "Adam") was a main character instead of an imposter. Having said that, I enjoyed the episode but felt that (like a few episodes this series) it was trying too hard to evoke emotions out of the viewer (Jack dishing out the retcon drug, having his memories of his father taken away, Tosh losing Adam etc) and just over cooking it.

Looking forward to "Reset" though, as I was unable to watch it due to work!

[Quote by: Dalzo] Just thought I would let you guys know that the main concept of this episode (an alien infiltrates the team by implanting false memories and making them think they have been working with them for years) has been directly lifted from one of the Torchwood books called "Border Princes" by Dan Abnett. What made the book work a little better than the episode is that it is written in such a manner that if you knew nothing about the series and read the book you would take it for granted that James (as opposed to "Adam") was a main character instead of an imposter. Having said that, I enjoyed the episode but felt that (like a few episodes this series) it was trying too hard to evoke emotions out of the viewer (Jack dishing out the retcon drug, having his memories of his father taken away, Tosh losing Adam etc) and just over cooking it.

Looking forward to "Reset" though, as I was unable to watch it due to work!

Well that's strange as I thought - and you might agree later - that 'Reset' is very much like the plot of one of the books.

I'll not say more here but might quote this in that thread - which you may read after watching the episode,